Differences between version 3 and previous revision of SuperUser.
Other diffs: Previous Major Revision, Previous Author, or view the Annotated Edit History
| Newer page: | version 3 | Last edited on Monday, January 19, 2004 6:25:06 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
| Older page: | version 2 | Last edited on Friday, August 1, 2003 6:42:59 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
@@ -5,9 +5,9 @@
__Don't overuse the power of root!__ Working as __root__ may be tempting since none of those pesky access restrictions boggle your mind, but it's very dangerous for exactly that reason. You accidentally rm(1) any part of the system and then it's gone. Someone who chances on your keyboard can get at anything on your computer. Any bugs in software can destroy your entire system. Nothing is safe from your touch.
-----
-; __Does everything run as the SuperUser?__ : No, that's a very silly idea. Programs can start as the SuperUser, get access to whatever they need to (perhaps a certain [port
]), and then relinquish their privileges. Most good programs are written this way. If your mail server ran as root, and there was a bug in it, you could crack root access by sending mail to a computer! (That is how the CodeRed worm worked.)
+; __Does everything run as the SuperUser?__ : No, that's a very silly idea. Programs can start as the SuperUser, get access to whatever they need to (perhaps a certain [Port
]), and then relinquish their privileges. Most good programs are written this way. If your mail server ran as root, and there was a bug in it, you could crack root access by sending mail to a computer! (That is how the CodeRed worm worked.)
; __If the super-user is the only person that can write to the sound card/some piece of hardware, how come I can too?__ : The super user can 'grant access' to certain devices. For example, in most Linux distributions, __/dev/dsp__ (the sound card, dsp stands for Digital Signal Processor) is set up so that it is owned by __root__ but belongs to the group __audio__, both of which have write access. Adding users to the __audio__ group then allows them to access the soundcard.
; __Changing to root whenever I want to do any administration is too hard!__ or %%% __[RedHat]/[MacOSX] asks me for the root password whenever I try and do any configuration, can I have the same thing?__ : There is a program called sudo(1) that lets you perform tasks as root. You type __sudo [[program-name]__, it optionally prompts you for password, and away you go. You can configure this so that you can perform certain super user tasks (anything using the hardware: ejecting a CD is a good example). sudo(1) is very powerful - you can allow specific users to do specific tasks under accounts other than their own, with or without being asked for permission. Take a good look at this very cool tool!
